Recipes Worth Sharing: Taco Soup

I found this one online a while back, and after making it a couple of times, I think I've played with it enough to share the original version, as well as my selections. The nice thing is that it's SUPER easy, and it MAKES A TON OF SOUP (I just about filled my 8 qt stock pot), and IT'S CHEAP!

Ingredients:

• 6 cans of any bean (I used 2 cans each Great Northern Beans, Kidney Beans, and Black Beans. I may play around with white & red, but I will definitely always use black beans)
• 2 cans of any tomato (I used the Aldi version of Rotel, which is diced tomatoes with diced chilles)
• 4 cans of any vegetable (I used corn, peas, green beans, and mixed veggies. The only thing I'm tied to in the mix is the corn, and in fact, I will probably use 2 cans of it in the future.)
• 2 packets of powdered Hidden Valley Ranch dressing (I used store brand)
• 2 packets of taco seasoning (again, store brand)

Directions:

1. Open all 12 cans
2. Dump in a pot (you could strain & drain & rinse any part of this except the tomatoes, but you'd have to add back liquid... and I would worry about not having the thickener that you get from using the liquid the beans are canned in)
3. Add seasoning packets
4. Stir well
5. Simmer, stirring occasionally, until you can't stand to wait anymore.

Optional:

• I served it with shredded cheese (mild cheddar) and corn chips (I like a little crunch in my soup) but there are a million other ways you could garnish (any kind of cheese you want, crackers, doritos, sour cream, jalapenos, etc etc etc).

Grumps & I have had this for either lunch or dinner 3 times so far, and we've only eaten half the pot.

I spent less than $12 on ingredients for this GIANT batch of soup. We will easily get 6 meals for 2 out of this, so $1 per (very generous) serving doesn't seem too bad to me at all. This is definitely a soup that I will make several times throughout the autumn and winter.